Home Free: John Mayer’s ‘In the Blood’ Lends Itself to Country

When Home Free approached their new album Timeless, they were conscientious in selecting songs they felt expressed more depth -- and John Mayer's first step into country music, "In the Blood," is just one of their prime selections.

Featured on Mayer's latest project, The Search For Everything, Home Free's Austin Brown -- who is a big fan of Mayer's -- instantly connected with the track and felt compelled to record it with the group.

"He came out with this album and I loved everything about it and that song in particular," Brown explains, adding that "In the Blood" and other songs "really lent themselves to country music.

"They talk about some really powerful things that you don't really get to explore that much in most other genres of music," he noted.

When he approached the group with the powerful song, they all agreed it was one they wanted to record. "These lyrics, they tell so much," Brown continues. "The song just stands on its own."

Fellow Home Free vocalist (and another fan of Mayer's) Tim Foust was also drawn to the song, calling it "brilliant."

"The first time I heard it I was like 'this is a country song, and a really good country song at that,'" he says.

As a whole, the group agrees that "In the Blood," "Castle on the Hill" and "Can't Outrun You" are three covers that help move them in a new direction, embodying a sense of depth they're hoping to achieve.

"That was a huge push that we had for this album was to try and get more emotional depth out of our music, try to get a little deeper, little more adult," says the group's Adam Rupp.

"I think one of the important things about both of those songs too is that going into the album, we didn't want it to be a static album, we didn't want it to be just kind of the same," adds the group's Adam Chance. "We wanted to have push and pulls, and ups and downs, and some emotion here, some high-power stuff here, so I think those two songs kind of made it."